Pancreatic and Liver Cancers

If surgery is part of your treatment plan, rest assured that your health is in the hands of experienced oncology surgeons. As a recognized leader in cancer care, we’re helping patients heal day in and day out through innovative surgical care. Your dedicated team of cancer specialists will review every detail of your medical history and recent tests to recommend the most effective treatment plan for you. Surgery may be the only treatment you need, or, more commonly, it’s used in combination with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy.

Options for Surgery

Our surgeons place a strong emphasis on treating tumors, both benign and malignant, with minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic techniques to optimize your outcome. Our patient-centered philosophy expands beyond clinical care excellence to include the emotional, nutritional and social well-being of you and your family. We take a multidisciplinary approach to care and provide you with access to a full range of leading-edge cancer treatments.

We treat a broad range of pancreatic, liver and hepatobiliary tumors with the most minimally invasive procedures possible. Whatever procedure is part of your treatment plan, our team is here to guide you from pre-op to post-op and beyond.

Radiation Therapy: What to Expect

While radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments for pancreatic and liver cancers, at AdventHealth Cancer Institute, we do it with exceptional expertise, guidance and compassion. Using sophisticated radiation technology, we can target tumors from rectal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer with amazing precision, easing your pain and leaving healthy tissue untouched. Depending on your diagnosis, your dedicated team may recommend radiation alone, but in many cases, we combine it with surgery, chemotherapy and sometimes other treatment options.

How Does Radiation Therapy Work?

Our oncology experts take an individualized approach to every patient’s treatment plan. Radiation therapy targets specific areas of the body, shrinking tumors and killing cancer cells by damaging their DNA.

When treating digestive tract cancer, radiation therapy is usually delivered in one of three ways:

• External radiation delivers radiation in a concentrated beam to keep nearby healthy tissue unaffected, often using imaging to guide the treatment
• Internal radiation delivers concentrated doses of radiation guided by ultrasound, keeping healthy nearby tissue safer
• Systemic radiation is a treatment that is swallowed or injected and then travels through your bloodstream to target and shrink cancer cells

Throughout your treatment, your nurses and your radiology care team are there to keep you and your support system informed, comfortable and uplifted.

Chemotherapy Treatment: What To Expect

Nothing matters more to us than getting you well and getting you home. Depending on what type of cancer you have and how advanced it is, chemotherapy may play an essential role in successfully treating your cancer, including colon cancer, rectal cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. From the moment you arrive for your chemo treatment, one of our nurses will be there to greet you and guide you.

How Does Chemotherapy Work?

Using a combination of specialized drugs, chemotherapy can destroy or slow down the growth of fast-growing cancer cells, wherever they are. Chemo can be administered intravenously, but it can also be delivered by injection or orally. At AdventHealth Cancer Institute, our oncology experts take an individualized approach to your chemotherapy treatment. Chemotherapy can be used in three different ways to help treat cancer:

• Neoadjuvant treatment, during which chemo is administered before surgery to shrink the tumor, makes it easier to remove and helps prevent the cancer cells from coming back
• Adjuvant treatment involves chemo being administered after surgery to help remove any cancer that may be left (often, you may receive a combination of chemo and radiation therapy after surgery, called chemoradiation)
• Chemotherapy can also be used as your primary treatment option if surgery and/or radiation therapy aren’t the right course of treatment for you

Depending on your type of cancer, we’ll determine which treatment(s) is best for you.

Hepatic Arterial Infusion Pump Technology

Hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) allows medication to be delivered directly to the liver from inside the body. Learn more about how this innovative technology could support your cancer treatment.

What Is an Implantable Pump?

An implantable pump is a small drug-delivery system meant to be implanted during surgery, specifically for colorectal cancer patients whose cancer has metastasized to the liver. The pump holds medication that is continuously released while you are going about your daily activities. AdventHealth is one of just two hospitals currently offering this treatment.

How Is the Pump Implanted?

The surgical procedure to implant the pump is usually performed under general anesthesia and normally takes two to three hours. If needed, any additional surgery may be performed at this time. If this is the case, your surgery may take longer. Your doctor or nurse will provide you with instructions for care of the implant site. Once the incision has healed, the site will no longer require any special care. As you recover from the surgery, you will be able to return to most of the activities you enjoyed before the surgery. However, you will be given some guidelines to follow.

How Does the Pump Work?

The inside of the pump is divided into inner and outer chambers. The inner chamber contains medication to be infused. The outer chamber contains a propellant permanently sealed inside. The temperature of your body warms the propellant that exerts constant pressure on the bellows, causing the medication to flow out of the inner chamber, through a filter and flow restrictor and then slowly out the catheter. Refilling the pump with medication expands the bellows and starts the pump on the next cycle of drug infusion. The pump may be refilled as often as necessary for your therapy.